They had conducted me home. I was dead-tired and very hungry. My hands were full of parcels. I rushed impetuously into the house. It was time for lunch; the morning had flown with marvellous swiftness. Nay, more; I was late for lunch. Father was standing alone in the dining-room. Marriage had wrought very little perceptible alteration in him. It is true he always now wore a perfectly clean collar, and his coats were always well brushed, but each one seemed to hang upon him in just its old, loose, aggravating fashion, being worn very high up on the nape of the neck, which gave his back a sort of bowed appearance; and his collars, however neat when he put them on in the morning, managed to get finely rumpled before school-hours were over. This was from a habit he had of clutching his collar fiercely when in the heat of argument. There was no laundress in the whole of London who could have made collars stiff enough to withstand father's clutch. But even Mrs Grant could not persuade him to put on a clean one to go back to afternoon school, nor could she get him to visit the barber as often as she wished. Therefore, on the whole, father looked much as he had always done. But perhaps he would not have been respected or loved as he was loved and respected if even his outward appearance had been changed. He was in a deep brown study now. He hardly saw me as I rushed into the room. I went up to him and took both his hands, and said, "Thank you-- thank you so much!" "What in the world are you thanking me about, Dumps?" he said. He seemed to wake with a start. "Where have you been? What is the matter? Don't litter the place, please; your step-mother doesn't like it." He observed the brown-paper parcels. "They're presents," I said. "Don't speak about them." He raised his hand wearily to his brow. "I am not likely to," he said. "Things wrapped up in brown-paper do not interest me." "Oh father! they interest most people. But you must--you really must-- rouse yourself for a minute or two, for I have to thank you so greatly, darling father." "What for?" he muttered. "The money--the money." "I am unaware, child, that I have given you any money." What could he mean? I felt a curious damp sensation round my spirits, which were quite high at the moment. Then I remembered that Mrs Grant had told me that I was not to worry father on the subject. "She said," I continued, with great eagerness, "that you were not to be worried, but that you had arranged it. I am to have an allowance in future, and she gave me the first quarter's allowance to-day--ten pounds." "Goodness!" said father. "What wilful waste! Ten pounds! Why, it would have bought--it would have bought that new--" He mentioned a volume which had a long Latin name. I understood now--or thought I understood--why my step-mother had desired me to be silent on the subject of my allowance. Father shook himself. I was roused even to a show of anger.